UN task force underscores capacity building to fight terrorism

MANILA, Philippines - A broader approach to counter-terrorism highlighted the recent United Nations workshop in Indonesia on fighting terrorists. 

The two-day UN-Terrorism Implementation Task Force (UNCTITF) workshop, which ended last Friday, aimed to raise awareness and build in-depth knowledge and understanding of the global strategy against terrorism as well as make the UN counter-terrorism framework more relevant.

The workshop, attended by government officials and anti-terror experts, also sought to fine tune the 2006 UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy.

Some of the measures proffered to stop terrorism are development of educational curricula to promote tolerance, rejecting violent extremism and building capacity for non-violent conflict resolution, community policing, development of national criminal justice systems in the region, and the protection of human rights as a fundamental basis for countering terrorism.

Recommendations included involving in the anti-terror war more government departments like development and finance ministries, as well as civil society organizations and groups representing victims of terrorism.

Participants also discussed the continuing threat of terrorism despite considerable success in dismantling terror networks.

“The adoption of the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy in 2006 by the General Assembly through consensus was a landmark achievement and a signature from all member states that terrorism must be tackled in a coordinated, comprehensive, preventive and holistic manner,” Jean-Paul Laborde, chairman of the UNCTITF, said.

Indonesia’s Vice Foreign Minister Triyono Wibowo, in his keynote address, hailed the adoption of a common approach “to fight terrorism, not only by sending a clear message that terrorism is unacceptable, but also resolving to take practical steps, individually and collectively, to prevent it.”

Indonesian Foreign Minister Dr. R.M. Marty Natelagawa said the death of terrorist Dulmatin demonstrated Indonesia’s resolve in stamping out terrorism.

Natelagawa said the death of “someone as heinous as Dulmatin should be good news to the entire (Asian) region.” Dulmatin had been actively involved in terror activities in the Philippines before his death in March in Jakarta after an encounter with security forces.

Natelagawa said Indonesia has never let down its guard after the death of Dulmatin, who was believed to be part of the al-Qaeda terror group.

The Indonesian diplomat said the upcoming visit to Jakarta of US President Barack Obama showed the global community’s confidence in his country’s counter-terrorism efforts.

He added that the Philippine-Indonesian anti-terror cooperation – including information and intelligence sharing – is “one clear example of cooperation dealing with the reality of our porous borders.”

Threat downplayed

Meanwhile, a linkup between the Abu Sayyaf and the Jemaah Islamiyah for the launching of terror attacks in the country has been a possibility since Sept.11 but no immediate danger exists at present, according to the military.

“The threat is real, it has been existing since Sept. 11 but at this point there is no immediate danger which calls for immediate actions,” AFP spokesman, Brig. Gen. Jose Mabanta said.

“At this point, I am in constant touch with the intelligence forces and there are really no substantive reports that there are terrorists (in Metro Manila),” Mabanta said.

“After Sept. 11, things have not been the same, particularly in the Philippines, because we have always been allied and associated with the Western powers and through the years this (terror threat) has continued,” he said. – Pia Lee-Brago, Jaime Laude